Yearly Archives: 2009

This morning I had my last photoshoot of the decade. It’s been an amazing 7 1/2 years of baby photography, and where better to end the decade than with a beautiful four day old little lady? I was so happy to get to meet her this morning!

Here she is with her big brother T, who was so sweet and loving with her:

Such alert, beautiful eyes!

And Daddy gave big brother T a lift on his shoulders:

A little mommy/daddy/sweet girl time… I love her expression here!

I think this one has the nicest expressions between mama and her girl:

And a quick snooze mid-shoot always helps:

Family hug:

And a Pippi squeeze:

I like this with the whole family plus Pippi having a giggle:

Wonderful to see you guys today – thank you for having me over. I’ll send all the rest of your photos ASAP for cards!

You know what’s funny? Location shooting with two kids in tow when it’s 30 degrees out and you’re losing the light. Well, actually, I don’t know if funny is the right word. ;)

Normally I’d never bring my own kids on a photoshoot (actually, I’ve never brought either of them before – not likely to be repeated), but this one was a quickie, for my friend Amy at Chubbybum Cards. She had this cool idea of getting photos of her kids putting money into a Salvation Army bucket, so that she could make a card for herself with a giving theme. But I had visions of the yucky Stop & Shop parking lot, without any light… crowded with people… so I tried to dissuade her. But then the other day I was walking out of Macy’s at the South Shore Plaza and I looked across the parking lot at the setting sun and called her. “Amy! I found the perfect bucket with the light I want! Meet me here at 3:30pm tomorrow and we can get photos for your card!” (I may have said it with not quite so many exclamation marks in my voice.) So I zipped over to the Plaza after preschool pickup today and met Amy and her two gorgeous kiddos. You’d never know I had a 4 yr old wrapped around my leg and a wailing six month old in her stroller behind me as we shot this, right?

Luckily it doesn’t even matter – this shot makes me smile so much – the two guys walking into the frame in the back cracking up are the best part.

What an incredible day! Fourteen other photographers and I came together today to take some pictures just to make people feel good. And look at that. It made us feel good too.

The brainchild of celebrity photographer Jeremy Cowart, Help-Portrait is “a community of photographers, coming together across the world, to use their photography skills to give back to their local community. On or around December 12th, photographers around the world will be grabbing their cameras, finding people in need, and taking their picture. When the prints are ready, the photographs get delivered. Yep. It really is that easy.”

This Boston crew had an amazing shoot today at Germaine Lawrence, a residential treatment center for adolescent girls. We shot over 50 girls, aged 11-18, and though I don’t want to put any of the girls’ photos up here, here are a few I snapped of the crazy photographers and the setup there.

We set up four “stations” in the gym:

And the best part was the group of volunteer hair and makeup people (thanks to Empire School of Beauty in Warwick, RI) who came and did hair and makeup on all 50 girls! The aroma of hairspray wafted waaaaay down the hall :) But the girls really felt like rock stars. You could see it when they came for their photos – their eyes were twinkling.

Lisa grabbing some crazy shots of two of our fabulous volunteers (as we waited for hair and makeup on the girls… this stuff takes time, after all!):

See what I mean? You go there, hoping to make other people happy, and you just get happy yourself.

Meg getting a kick out of her subject:

A couple of the sweet photographers gave the girls a chance behind the lens, too – this girl has a future in fashion photography ahead of her…

Another switcheroo – photographer as subject:

It was not only an incredible day because the girls were so awesome, but it was also great to get to spend some time with like-minded photog peeps. This team of people has been meeting and planning this event for months now, and I can’t thank them enough for letting me join them after I wasn’t able to attend ANY of the planning meetings.

Great day, gorgeous photos – I’m so excited for the girls to get their prints (kindly donated by iPrintfromhome.com). I think they’re really going to love them.

As I was looking back through this photoshoot from Tuesday, trying to pick my favorite shots for the blog, two themes emerged with this big one year old girl. Before I get into themes and all that “I’m working on my homework for junior high” stuff, I have to show you my favorite shot from the session, which happened mere moments after I walked in the door.

As she peeks over at me, doing her crinkle-nose smile:

Where was I? Oh yes, themes. So the first theme that emerges was definitely this sweet girl’s love of her monkey stuffed animal. Here she is, excited to see him as she crawls across the bed:

And this is my 2nd favorite shot from the day – as her dad and she enjoy a hug with monkey:

For her birthday party, she donned this fantastic monkey hat (found by her cool mom on etsy.com… what a fun site!):

And the other theme that emerged, by far, was the extraordinary love of books and reading for this little one. Here she is, piled in amongst her Sandra Boynton (and other) books.

Had to get a knuckle picture – the dimples kill me:

Bright-eyed after her morning nap :)

Reaching… reaching…

The Curious George balloon was no match for herself in the mirror:

Reading another book with mama – loving those toes:

It was wonderful spending some time with you guys, and fun to meet another Milton family!

I think Kathy (mom in this family) gets the prize for most patient waiting list family. She was on the waiting list for what felt like forever this fall, and kept trying to get appointments whenever I had a cancellation. She was always my 2nd or 3rd reply when I’d send out the “there’s a spot available” emails… always just barely missed it. And then when we had a shoot booked back in November, her boys got sick the night before… it just felt like it wasn’t in the cards this season.

But then the stars aligned and I was able to shoot their family this past weekend. This tree shot is making me smile – looks like everyone’s giving a good holler:

And when you’re the middle brother, your picture doesn’t often come first – but this one is killing me…

And sweet baby B:

Handsome big brother P – who seems to have grown up overnight. I’ve known him since he was a wee one, and oh my gosh: huge. Not to mention the best cowlick ever.

Isn’t O’s expression (including dimple) as he looks over at P the best?

This past Saturday was raining buckets, and I called these guys and said – I think we should do this after the holidays are over. It’s just too gross out, and I know O will have a better time if we can go outside. We went back and forth, and his mom told me she had the tree up… and wanted to get some xmas cards done… we’d already rescheduled due to weather a bunch of times this fall… so we went for it.

(By the way, what has been UP with our weekend weather this fall? Nuts!)

So when I hear that someone has their tree up, I picture nice twinkley lights as a background, but not really that much of an impact on my ambient light for the photos. I was so excited when I saw their funky white artificial tree – complete with super lighting! Look at this – my top pic for their xmas card shot this year:

This handsome boy is four this year – his fourth photoshoot with me. Wow, so big!

This photo has me giggling – even at this late hour. C grabs T to plant one on him, square in the center of his mouth. Hilarious. The hugs at this shoot were awesome – the boys had such fun playing together.

During this particular moment, C is seizing the moment and thinking, hmm… this might be my opportunity to take ownership of this baseball…

The ball was a source of fantastic interaction throughout the shoot :)

Playing with Dad was also a favorite activity:

And their ball handling skills were impeccable:

This one might be my top pic for an xmas card shot – kind of non-traditional, but I love how the boys are hiding mom and dad entirely! Too funny.

I think my favorite is the 3rd photo. I want to know what is so funny!! Photos are wonderful. What a beautiful family!!

Grammie -December 7, 2009 - 12:49 pm

Your skills at capturing Thomas and Cameron's unique personalities are terrific. Great pictures of a lovely family.

Anonymous -December 7, 2009 - 1:48 pm

Wow, what amazing pictures! That is one of the best family pictures I've seen. And the "xmas card" photo is adorable. The 3rd and 4th pictures are so fun and natural and really show so much personality.

ethan -December 7, 2009 - 4:20 pm

super cute. 5dmkii/Lseries 28-70mm? very nicely done.

Anonymous -December 7, 2009 - 4:20 pm

Great family photo! Mt favorite of the group is photo #3. Thomas' expression is priceless and Cameron is so hopeful that he will get to hold the ball next. What adorable boys.

Jessica -December 7, 2009 - 5:14 pm

I love the family photo! The photos are unbelievable, I love them all

josh walker -December 7, 2009 - 5:45 pm

Those two boys should be models.

Anonymous -December 7, 2009 - 6:09 pm

I love how much personality is captured in these photos. I especially love the second one where they are hugging.

Olivia -December 7, 2009 - 7:14 pm

What gorgeous tots! Wish we could've been there! Beautiful pics!

Andy -December 7, 2009 - 8:29 pm

Great kids and great parents…what a great family!!!

Corinna -December 8, 2009 - 10:26 am

Great shots!

Anonymous -December 8, 2009 - 1:00 pm

This photographer has incredible patience and creativity, such a gift. And such a beautiful family!

Anonymous -December 9, 2009 - 9:42 am

These photos are adorable. Great job capturing the boys in their element. Amazing photos of a great family!

Patience is a virtue, they say, and these guys’ momma has it in spades! I promised her these photos days ago, and then life got in the way and here it is Friday. But I am so happy with these, I hope you guys are, too. After getting a chance to meet each of the boys for newborn pictures over the years, I was thrilled to get a chance to meet their new sister.

This first one is my favorite. I am in love with all the expressions!

And this next one makes me want to have a third child and get someone to take this picture of my family for me. I love the train book, and the hilarious look on sweet baby I’s face as she ignores her brother’s favorite book :)

In case you’re not a Robert McCloskey fan (the author of the classic “Make Way For Ducklings” book), those are (I think) the names of the ducklings. I did it from memory, because I’m too lazy to walk the seven steps to my daughter’s bookcase and confirm it. But I think it’s something like that.

I met these guys in the Boston Public Garden last weekend for their pictures – they’d gotten a gift certificate for a shoot a while back, and they’d been patiently waiting on my waiting list for weeks and weeks. Finally they nabbed an open spot, and we lucked out with the weather.

I had to post this picture first, even though we took it at the end of the session. Mom mentioned as we were packing up to leave that they had one of those classic Make Way for Ducklings frames, and wouldn’t it be so great to get a picture of their Jack sitting on top of this duckling Jack? Big boy Jack wasn’t so sure about that plan, but I actually prefer this one anyway, with him checking things out in the background with his dad :)

And this is my #1, hands-down, no question favorite from the session. Best smiles ever. Love how his hair matches his mom’s hair.

Isn’t he a handsome dude?

Oh yeah. Forgot this one. Love this one too.

Look at those CHEEKS!

Swing!

This one is perfect because all Jack wanted to do during the shoot was walk around. He’d just gotten his feet under him, and he was loving wandering all over the gardens. And what better to walk to than a ball from mom?

The weeping willows make such a great background here. Leaf in hand – what’s more fall-like?